DIY How to Train Your Dragon Toothless Baby Costume for $12

How To Train Your Dragon is one of my family’s favorite movies and my husband and I thought it was quite fitting that our 9-month-old (who has no teeth yet!) dress as Toothless the Night Fury for Halloween. My husband and I went as Astrid and Hiccup from the movie as well (not pictured.)

I couldn’t find a plain black body suit anywhere so I bought a 9-12 month body suit from the thrift store ($1.50), cut along all seams and made a pattern from it! I used one yard of stretchy cotton fabric, (sale bin, about $3) thread (already owned), and a 7-9″black zipper ($2) for the body suit.

I bought one yard of black felt (on sale, $3) for the wings and tail (which ended up being way more than I needed). I looked online at pictures of Toothless for reference drawing the wings and tail onto the fabric in chalk before cutting. I cut out the wings and tail and sewed the decorative “webbing” of the wings. I used Velcro (I already had some but it’s $1 to buy) on the back of the body suit and wing structure so that I could attach/detach the wings while baby was in her car seat.

I purchased two small squares of felt ($0.36 each) for the red tail and green eyes, similarly I looked to the online pictures for reference.

Finally, I used fabric paint that I already had for the last details, I drew random scale shapes on the hood, shoulders, and wrists in black and I drew the skull emblem on the tail in white.

The reactions I have gotten from this costume have been amazing. We took our daughter to the Texas Renaissance Festival in her costume and could hear people around us throughout the festival saying “Oh my God, it’s Toothless!” Most people have asked where I bought the costume and are blown away when I admit I made it myself. Multiple people have asked to take pictures of our baby in her costume and I even had someone ask if I could make them an adult-sized version for ComicCon.

My mom made all of our costumes growing up and they were the best. I was a bit nervous that I wouldn’t measure up to her skills with my own baby so I kept baby’s costume a secret (in case everything went wrong and she ended up a ghostly sheet with two eye holes, haha.) That said, this costume turned out better than I ever could have hoped. I do not consider myself a seamstress by any means and usually when I sew things there is a lot of trial and error, but with this costume I worked very hard and took my time and, with a tremendous amount of luck, everything worked out perfectly for my baby’s first Halloween costume and I look forward to the years of costume making ahead.